Infinitron

With the possible exception of Divinity: Original Sin (which had the advantage of years of development and some very unique features that helped people overlook its flaws) I've yet to see a Kickstarter RPG beta that didn't make a large number of its backers weep or rage. This is going to keep on happening. It'll happen with Torment, too. An unfinished RPG is an ugly, ugly thing.

If somebody told you four years ago that you would be getting a new Infinity Engine game, but that you'd hate and reject it due to its implementation of the Strength attribute and its health mechanics, you'd think they were crazy. Have some proportion, people.

No I agree, I think the hit and miss mechanics of D&D are fine, it's Josh who doesn't like them. He wanted no miss at all remember. You seemed to enjoy the high-damage hits in your videos well enough, though. ("Oooh, 47, nice hit!")

Haha, it would actually be a very Sawyery move to give every enemy in the game (or at least most of them) a ranged attack of some sort, but it's probably too late to do something like that now. I know some people who say that one of the key disadvantages of Black Isle's Infinity Engine games when compared to Bioware's is that the former didn't have enough effective ranged enemies. Maybe that's something that needs to be considered.

I believe that strictly speaking "gamism" means that the game design should focus on offering players the maximum number of viable, interesting and challenging choices at all times, even at the expense of realism and narrative cohesion (although in CRPGs the latter element is less often sacrificed in the pursuit of gamist goals)

This thread is primarily about heavy armor not being useful enough and you just suggested a mechanic to make it even less attractive

Well, that's tactics, and you are taking a risk by doing that - if an enemy does somehow get close to your naked character, he's in trouble. You know what could be interesting, though? Have enemies prioritize lightly armored characters, and try to make a beeline for them. Have naked characters generate more aggro, basically.

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree that there should always be a reason for ranged characters to wear heavy armor, though. It won't be a tragedy if they wear padded armor most of the time. I mean, let's face it, they're ranged. Not having to wear heavy armor kind of comes with the territory. Maybe later on in the game, when there are mages that inflict huge damage from a distance or something, a "plate-armored archer" type of thing might come into play. We probably just need more ranged enemies, and also more melee enemies that break disengagement and try to make a run for your ranged guys if they're doing too much damage.

Ranged characters could easily run around "nude" in the IE games as well. It's just that there was no reason for them not to wear armor, so you just slapped some on whenever you found some. The strong association between armor types and classes in AD&D helped motivate players to do this - thieves wear leather! mages wear robes! fighters and clerics wear plate! Don't ask why, they just do! And players went along with that, and received their beloved archetypes, even if they didn't actually really have to. But when a game gives you more choices, well, you suddenly realize you don't actually have to make a choice at all. But I digress. Ranged enemies firing back at your ranged characters should be the motivation for wearing armor; perhaps this will end up being Josh's rationale for increasing ranged damage on bows, as Sensuki fervently desires. Or maybe there just need to be more ranged enemies.

They're both viable. It's you who insists on inserting the word "equal". Actually, it's easier to demonstrate an "equality" between leather and plate in 3rd Edition D&D than it is in Pillars of Eternity. In 3E D&D, If you have high enough dexterity, leather armor can give you the same or more benefit in AC than plate does.

Ouch. Well at the time, it probably made sense. People though armors would work like in IE games, not this Leather armor = Plate armor crap. I'm not sure why you think it "=". Plate armor has higher DT than leather armor, but makes you slower. It's a fairly reasonable tradeoff even if you're a simulationist. (But generally speaking I'd recommend staying far away from this game if you can't deal with "gamism".)

You mean percentages? That was something I mentioned earlier in the thread. Warcraft 3 used percentage based armor because of this issue I believe (but they used integer based damage). No, I mean fractions as in floating point numbers. DT 1.0, DT 1.5, DT 2.3, etc. There you go, smaller numbers for HP and damage and everything.

Archangel: Durability? Let me tell you about durability.

Maybe the DT values should be fractions.

Sarex: Of course. Atmosphere is in part a function of narrative immersion. As for the system and its "uniformity", what Stun* sees as a betrayal of the Infinity Engine's values, I see as a glorious attempt to finally join together the class-based Infinity Engine/Baldur's Gate design philosophy and the classless, flexible Fallout-style design philosophy. It's what we would have gotten if Black Isle had ever gotten their chance at developing a "big" fantasy RPG, and I for one can't wait to see how it ends up. *(Of course, I have no idea what "non-combat roles" Stun is talking about - as if the IE games had any non-combat activity worth speaking of outside of some thieving abilities. I think what he really means is that in the IE games fighters had to be strong, wizards had to be smart, etc, all of which eventually maps into combat roles even if it's not combat directly.)

I'd recommend coming into it from NwN2. Well, no, because then you'd be used to having a hotbar and other such post-WoW amenities. Also, less party members to manage. It's definitely a game by the lead designer of Icewind Dale 2.

The game definitely feels like an IE game, but it doesn't feel like AD&D. I'd recommend coming into it from Icewind Dale 2.

What's easier to change, the health/stamina ratio or the distribution of healing potions throughout the entire game

The truth is that all strategic health concerns are "frustrating". Running out of limited supplies for resting? Frustrating. Areas where you can't rest and have to run back to town? Frustrating. Resting in the wild and getting ambushed by random encounters every time? Frustrating. Imposing a time limit on the quest or the entire game so players don't waste time resting? As the reactions to Fallout and Mask of the Betrayer showed, definitely frustrating. Heck, even waiting for your health to slowly regenerate in a game that does that is frustrating. So, what exactly is the alternative other than going full Dragon Age? At least having supplies that you can buy or find lets you mitigate things to some extent, instead of imposing a hard limit on you.

Downloading/Installing right now mate. Guess now I can remove my signature disclaimer STATING that I'm not in the beta (which I'm sure you've seen, read and acknowledged). Wonderful. Now you won't have any more excuses for being wrong.

Maybe you should play the game before writing off its mechanics, mutonizer.

I mean something like this: This sort of thing is really effective for showing players a game's variety and depth.

In Baldur's Gate 1, I often had as many as 4 out of 6 party members out on the front lines, essentially functioning as "tanks". This "single tank out of health, everybody else has full health" scenario just seems like an extreme way of playing that isn't really meant to be fun/viable.

Reposting: Hmm, what's the role of a tank is not to be the one to get ****ed up instead of others? I mean you might not agree with the need for a tank (which I have no problem with), but once you allow that path to be taken, then that's pretty much their role? I mean, fighters have nothing but talents dedicated to do just that, soaking up damage and get ****ed up constantly. The more you use resources to "CC" and "prevent damage", the more useless they become at their one and only role in the game... ...so it's not a failure or a fault if your tank gets ****ed up really, according to the game design, at least some of it, it's actually a success if the tank is getting hit constantly, because that's what everything in the class is designed for...except the Health system... Depends how define tanking. If you define "tanking" as "the character that stops enemies in their tracks and takes most of the hits", then the health system is irrelevant and the fighter is doing his job just fine. But if you define "tanking" as "the character that absorbs most of the party's total health resources", then yeah, Pillars of Eternity makes that impossible, because the only health/healing resource available to a character is his own health bar. So there's a tradeoff between tanking and having to worry about long-term/strategic damage spread across your entire party, unlike the Infinity Engine games where you could "healbot" your tank until you ran out of healing spells, and he was 100% effective until that time. I don't think this is necessarily a downside. In fact, it makes me laugh. A lot of people on this forum complained that "Pillars of Eternity pigeonholes us into MMO-style 'combat roles'!" Yet here is a mechanic that diminishes those roles and forces you to mix it up more...and now people are complaining about that.

Add this as a soundtrack: